


Together (Doesn't Feel Right At All)

by DianaSolaris



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Borderline Personality Disorder, Break Up Talk, Canon Compliant, Keith (Voltron) Has BPD, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romantic Angst, Season/Series 02, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 05:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12005640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaSolaris/pseuds/DianaSolaris
Summary: There is no such thing as forever, and it's one of the hardest lessons to learn - that love isn't a permanent thing, especially when you're young and reckless and full of pain and hope and bad dreams. Sheith.... breakup fic. Uh, yeah, tread lightly for the angst.





	Together (Doesn't Feel Right At All)

Keith hates it, and hates himself, for the simple fact that he’s started putting an asterisk on every time he says ‘I love you’ - a little appendix that says, alternately, ‘ _ for now’,  _ or ‘ _ until X’  _ where ‘X’ is an unknown variable. X is the number of times he can grit his teeth or keep his cool or keep a smile on his face. Alternately, again, X is the ticking down of the time until he can actually put into words what’s actually wrong.

Because - at the end of the day - the absolute truth always has been and always will be (or always should be) that he is in love with Takashi Shirogane. How could he not be? He can’t imagine a life without Shiro. Life before Shiro was dark and lonely and lost. And that isn’t even him trying to make it sound like Shiro saved his life - it just, well, his life got a lot better when Shiro showed up and that’s just how it is. Facts are facts. He loves Shiro and Shiro loves him. You can’t change what is written in stone.

(One of the things they learn in elementary school and have pounded into their head at the Garrison is the idea of erosion; you can’t measure planetary surfaces from light years away, or take the shape of a crater for granted. By the time you get there, the forces of time and the winds of space have battered the stone into a whole new shape.)

* * *

The first time they’re together again, alone, after the year of separation, it’s Shiro who closes the gap between them. It’s quiet alone out on the plateau, and Keith just touches him on the shoulder - but Shiro pulls him into a hug, and for a moment it feels like Shiro is drowning.

“I missed you,” Shiro whispers, and anybody else might see it as normal, but Keith can hear the desperation in it.

“I missed you too.” And it’s true. You don’t get kicked out of a Garrison for yelling in a commanding officer’s face because you were  _ neutral  _ on somebody. But Keith keeps back the other thing he wants to say, confused and whirling in his head,  _ you’ve changed.  _ It doesn’t matter that he’s changed. He’s still Shiro.

Shiro and Keith. Keith and Shiro. That’s how it works.

* * *

Things ease out. It’s just a matter of learning each other’s rhythms again, remembering the way each other’s hearts beat against each other’s palms and chests and lips. But the words don’t come easily as they did. And -

-and Keith doesn’t know what to do for Shiro’s nightmares. It’s not his fault. Either of theirs. But he’s so -  _ so  _ used to Shiro being the strong one. He tries. He really, really wants to know what to do.

But the first time Shiro lurches out of the bed, and Keith reaches for him and ends up with a hand (ever so briefly) around his neck - (and that only happens the once, but once is enough) -

It’s not the trauma that’s the problem. Keith has his own nightmares. His own damage. A dozen foster homes. More than one orphanage. It’s that after the apology, after checking that  _ Keith  _ is okay, after falling all over himself to swear that he’s getting better, Shiro puts his shield up again and throws himself in front of Lance and Pidge and Hunk and Allura to protect himself. Like Keith can’t tell that Shiro stopped valuing his own life somewhere along the way. Like Keith can’t tell that he’s trying to find something to himself other than an experiment, a soldier -

But every time he tries to ask, tries to bring it up, the wall comes up between them. And Shiro smiles and shrugs it off. “I’m fine. We have other things to worry about.”

* * *

I love you, I think.

I love you, but this hurts.

I love you, until I can’t bear it anymore.

I love you, but I think the you I loved is gone.

I love you, but I get tired and I get weak. 

* * *

Keith turns off the lights in his room. He closes the door. He lies face first on the bed, muffling his face in the pillow.

_ I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m - _

He screams into the pillow. He can feel his own tears of frustration soaking into the bed, his fingers holding the sheets so tightly he can feel them rip. Shiro needs help. Shiro  _ needs help. _

And - honestly - so does  _ he.  _

But how do you  _ ask?  _ It’s always been Shiro and Keith, and Shiro was the strong one, Shiro was his shield, Shiro was his protector, and now his shield is breaking, and he’s trying to put the pieces back together all on his own - 

_ It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault.  _ It’s a mantra, and it’s not a wrong one. But it’s not a helpful one either.

Keith sits up, wipes the tears away, and puts his face back on. He’s got a mission to get ready for. He’s Shiro’s right hand. Time to do his job.

* * *

He doesn’t realize how much of it he’s doing to himself until they’re separated, and he’s chasing across a planet to get to him.

“Please don’t die,” he finds himself saying desperately. “I need you to not die.”

“I would much prefer not dying, to be perfectly honest.”

And Keith can’t help it - the words rush out of him over the comms, angry and bitter and cutting - “With the way  _ you’ve  _ been acting?”

Shiro’s silent on the other end of the line and Keith keeps walking, focusing on his footsteps against the stone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Keith’s said it now. He can’t unsay it. “You -” He chews on his lip, the tears and rage he’s been holding back suddenly rushing to the forefront. “You’ve been trying to get yourself killed since you got back to me. Just - please -  _ please  _ don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

“I’ve been protecting my team.”

_ My team. _

Not ‘you’.

My team.

It’s a good answer. It’s the right answer. Keith can still feel his heart breaking, and now he’s even angrier at himself than he was -  _ you thought you were falling out of love with him? Now what? What do you do now that he doesn’t want you? -  _ “There are ways to protect us that don’t involve throwing yourself in front of every blaster and Galra sword there is.”

“I haven’t been doing that.”

“Then why am I constantly  _ scared for you? _ ”

“Maybe you just need to trust me a little more.”

The words  _ should  _ calm him down. Instead they just hurt. Because he  _ wants  _ to. He  _ should.  _

“Keith?” And Shiro’s voice softens, weakens, and suddenly for the first time in a long time he’s hearing his lover instead of the fearless leader - “Do you still love me?” he asks, and it’s not a command, or even a request, but a scared and fragile question.

Keith kneels at the edge of the ravine, and stares at the immeasurable distance in front of him, and even though he has answers, he can problem-solve his way out of and around and through just about anything, suddenly it feels impossible.

“...I don’t know,” he admits, and even though there’s nothing but static for a long time, he can still hear Shiro’s heart breaking, in turn, on the other end.  _ So much,  _ he thinks,  _ for the idea that only one person gets hurt.  _

* * *

He still saves Shiro’s life. Of course. It doesn’t matter what else happens - Shiro is still his...

There aren’t enough words in the English language.

So it comes down to the two of them by a fire, Keith determinedly focused on the things that need to get done, ignoring the way Shiro is looking at him, ignoring the pounding in his chest. Heartbeat after heartbeat after heartbeat. He wishes it’d  _ stop.  _

He loves Shiro and Shiro loves him.

Facts written in stone.

A world turns on its axis.

“How long have you been sitting on that?” Shiro asks, and Keith isn’t sure if the trace of bitterness he hears in his (question-mark; title not found)’s voice is really there, or if Keith is just projecting.

Keith shrugs. He doesn’t really want to answer that. Partially because he doesn’t  _ know.  _ “I - it wasn’t important.”

“Until now, apparently.”

Yep. Definitely not just him projecting. It’s kind of nice, really. Something more than Perfect Leader and Broken Soldier; something beyond the masks. 

Keith sits down. “You - I -” But the words won’t work with him. He squeezes his hands, releases, tries to shake out some of the tension built up in his bones. “You needed - someone. Need someone. Just like I need you.” He can’t bear to put it in past tense, because he  _ does  _ need Shiro - but Shiro can’t be his support, not  _ now,  _ not while they have billions of lives to save. Trauma that’s over ten years in the past can’t take precedence to the fate of the universe.

“And it had to be you, on your own.” 

“It’s  _ always  _ been us.”

“But it isn’t, anymore.” And Shiro’s so  _ confused  _ by the thought that Keith doesn’t yet feel like part of this team, that things didn’t immediately change or that they’ve  _ both  _ just been operating the same as usual, orbiting in their own binary system even while Shiro goes on and on about teamwork and faith in each other. 

“Okay,” Keith replies raggedly.

“That’s not what I meant -”

“I said,  _ okay. _ ”

“Keith. Look at me.”

Keith doesn’t want to. He does anyway, and he immediately regrets it. Shiro’s eyes are grey with mourning and twilight, and it just makes it sink in even more that things are  _ changed,  _ irrevocably.

“I’m not your burden,” he says softly. “And you don’t have to carry me.”

“That’s not -”

“I will never stop loving you. And if I die, I want you to lead Voltron. But that’s all I ask.” His mouth twitches, almost ironically. “And we can leave it there.”

It hurts. It hurts, and it hurts even more when Keith realizes how relieved he is. All the same, he’s not sure he  _ can  _ leave - because he doesn’t know how to exist on his own. Keith and Shiro. Shiro and Keith.

* * *

(Right now, your friend desperately want to see you.)

* * *

I love you*

-for now.

I love you*

-until X.

I love you*

-until the end of time.

I love you*

-but I can’t touch you without burning. 

* * *

Facts are facts.

You can’t change what is written in stone - but you can watch it erode under your feet until there’s nothing left.


End file.
